Logbook of an Unknown Artist | Paintings Of Animesh Roy

Art of Animesh Roy Please keep in touch with my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/animeshroyartist Still Life with plate o...

Friday, April 3, 2015

Portrait of an Artist... Interaction with Bharti Sharma

Portrait of an Artist... Interaction with Bharti Sharma

Artist Animesh Roy in his studio.
Noida, Delhi India Feb 2015

http://indianartcollectors.com/features/artist-interview?id=17

"You are either an artist or you are not. Here there are no in-betweens." That is how Animesh Roy defines an artist. Animesh insists upon not being read as an artist with a chosen truth to profess through his works. His reason to paint is as simple as happiness. In his words, “I paint because I like to portray the happier side of life.” Animesh’s works affirm his motto. The breezy landscapes laden with painterly impasto bring to life the simple rustic rhyme of colour and light in nature. There is a rich play of textures, hues and poetic strokes in his works. His life, much like his art is a beautiful unison of the Orient and the Occident, given that he divides his time between India and Poland. What dominates his persona is his vibrant bohemian demeanour, his hunger for travel. His childhood years, much like his growing years, have seen the myriad hues of numerous streets of numerous cities which he resurrects in his works. He thrives on meeting people, visiting villages, monasteries, temples, churches, mosques... even graveyards....Bharti Sharma: Your subject matter is quintessentially simple. How far does the subject determine the splendour of an art work? Or does it do that at all? Animesh Roy: For me the painting is beyond the subject. I feel the painting is important not the subject. Subject is immaterial. Cézanne, the founding father of modern art, started painting apples. He said he would shock the Paris Art World with an apple. He wanted to bring revolution with just an apple. Look at the simplicity of the subject.I believe if a work is to be described to the onlooker then it kills the very work. A work is self explanatory.

BS: Art is often seen as a means to express the deepest meanings. Do you view or want your works to be viewed at a metaphysical level? AR: I don’t believe in attributing a transcendental meaning to my works, what inspires me is something as pure as nature. Cézanne said that whenever he was in doubt and he wanted to know if the painting was good, he held it against nature. He knew where the master was. The master was nature. My travels also inspire my work. Be it the Polish landscapes or the Indian Sadhus, I paint what I see. I love to Travel because that’s where the so called inspiration comes, so I hope to travel, paint more and be generally happy. BS: When you paint nature, do you exaggerate the characters that catch your eye or paint the scene as it is? AR: Exaggeration comes naturally while painting. Exaggeration comes from what you like. If I am painting a nude, my perception of the size of the breast is what I will paint regardless of how the model looks. Yes you may call it perception or exaggeration, but this comes naturally with each canvas I do. I would say an artist paints not so much by perception but by his own limitations. BS: I can see a lot yellow around you. From the door to the studio walls, yellow is the colour that dominates. AR: Yellow is my favourite colour. A painting is about how you put the colour. Colour is the soul of the work. You see colours differently. What orange you see, I see another orange, you can look more towards the yellow and I can look more towards the red. That is the beauty of colour. I have worked in charcoals, water colours, oils but I don’t believe Acrylic to be a colour.

BS: Whom do you turn to when in doubt about a work? AR: I taught in a school for some months. I used to show my work to my students, the youngest lot. They would then ask me questions and give me the right ideas. So the most innocent were my favourite critics. That is how I use to look at it. BS: How far do you agree with the art education system of the country?What changes do you wish to see in the education circuit in India that can help art students to flourish better? AR: I am not very impressed by the art education scene here. I feel art colleges should be run by artists. For me an artist is the one whose fundamentals are strong and is talented. To have your fundamentals one must read a lot. In my time all we had were books. One could always find me in the library sifting through books. Now there is the Internet. One must navigate as much as possible. I also believe there is a lot of unlearning required. One should try to unlearn the learnt so as to learn the new.

BS: Do you intend to give your viewers a message through your works? AR: I don’t pretend that I paint to convey a message. I paint because I like to portray the happier side of life-beautiful landscapes, flowers for example, because I think there are enough artists to paint the morbid side.

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About Me

Animesh Roy is inspired by the furious passion of Van Gogh, the adventure in Robert Louis Stevenson and the grit in Papillon, by Messner (Reinhold) for being alone with the mountains, the irreverence and bohemia of Henry Miller, the rebellious youths in 'The Wild One' ── “What are you rebelling against? What’ve you got?”, the sublime serenity of Tagore (Rabindranath) and Ray (Satyajit), and courage, greatness of the Mahatma (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi).

Born in one of the most artistic places in Bengal, Krishnagar, famous for its clay sculptures, Roy has been criss-crossing since a child as his parents had transferable jobs. A sense of adventure was instilled in him as a child through treks in the Himalayas — “Walking down to Saat Taal and getting lost on the way back in the darkness.....”

Inspiration comes from adventure, travel, meeting people, visiting villages, monasteries, temples, churches, mosques, and graveyards. He would not be able to work in the confines of a comfortable city studio. Though many of his works do get physically done in a studio - the germs are born on the road, while travelling, soaking in.

Roy has been a rebel and a traveller and his natural skills are completely untrained. His artistic growth did get stunted from four years of exile in the Delhi College of Art, trying to get a meaningless ‘art degree’. He planned for a ‘break’ like Papillon succeeding with two back to back solo shows just out of art college in 1992, thus earning the ire of the art critics and his art college professors!

Since then Roy has had several solo shows in major Indian cities and in Europe, with wide spread appreciation from the critics and collectors alike.

Roy travelled to Ladakh in 1995 in the comforts of an aircraft and called it - Travels with a Donkey - a R. L. Stevenson travelogue. He did some 100 drawings in and around Leh.

Then around 1997 he went into a hiatus — reading, learning how to drive and travelling furiously whenever his budget would allow — Nepal, Bhutan, America, Sikkim, Garhwal, Himachal, Rajasthan, Kutch, UP, Bengal, Goa, Madras. He stopped painting and exhibiting, cutting himself off from the ‘art world’ but continued quietly to do pen-and-ink drawings of places visited.

From 1996 to 2004 Roy did extensive pen-and-ink drawing of Delhi’s ruins: Mehrauli, Tughlakhabad, Adilabad, Sri, Sultan Ghari, Old Delhi etc., while constantly planning his next trip to Leh by road via Manali a distance of over 3,000 km from Delhi and back.

In 2004 he went back to Ladakh, this time travelling alone in his jeep, battling severe high altitude sickness, driving through some of the world’s highest altitude roads and passes. He paints this time. Early 2006 he visited Banaras and came back to his studio in Delhi to produce some 30 odd paintings in acrylics on canvas mostly inspired by the spring and summer of Delhi and a new found joy in his heart.

Roy is now back to his first love - painting.

In the summer of 2006 Roy went back to the Himalayas…to the Kullu Valley in Himachal Pradesh, painting the waterfalls and mountainscapes in acrylics on canvas. By the time monsoon came he was back to the plains, painting the fields in the villages around Delhi. During this time Roy finally switched to oils… a medium till now avoided by him due to the fear that it was not suited to his temperament! Many wise men had advised him against using oils!! But lately Roy was very unhappy with the results of Acrylic paints.. ‘It’s too muddy and there’s no sparkle’. So he started oils. Initially it was difficult to work outdoors with oils but he has adapted and has been working since in oils.

Roy went to Poland in 2007. It was early spring and the earth was coming back to life after a harsh winter... everyday fresh blades of grass and wild flowers would spurt... soon the landscape was flooded with flowering tress, shrubs, herbs... it was difficult to keep pace with ever-changing landscape.. before you could decide and go back to a spot the flowers have gone and was greeted by something new!

He spent about six months in Poland, travelling and painting. By the time he packed his easel and paints, he had finished about sixty odd works during his sojourn. Most of the works were done in the open air, and when the weather would turn too rough for outdoors, he would do some still life indoors.

Why Poland? Heart has its reason which the mind can’t fathom...

"Adventure is not in the guidebook and beauty is not on the map. Seek and you shall find."

— Elliot Porter

Roy is currently painting in Europe....trying to complete his art 'degree' amidst the beautiful landscape and museums of Europe!!

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“Animesh
Roy paints with a breezy brush, loaded with thick paint catching the
ephemeral poetry of colour and light...” thus wrote an art critic
once.

Animesh
Roy (b.1968 India) studied at Delhi College of Art (1986-90).

In
the last two decades since, he has held and participated in various
art shows across the world. The artist's impressionistic style is
characterised by visible, expressive brush-strokes, a painterly
impasto, bright and soft colours, visible textures and bold
highlights.

Animesh
has a lucid painterly style, drawing from his travels around the
world.

His
art works are painted mostly in oil on linen canvas and drawn with
strong strokes and vibrant colours that make the pictures seem almost
to glow.

Because
of his excellent paintings techniques, he has received high
appreciation from art critics and collectors. And catches the
attention of media.

In
his Art so in his life, Roy has merged the Orient and the Occident to
a beautiful unison!